Shaping Research: Key Informants

Despite our different ways of engaging with communities, my co-author, Dr. Debbi Main, and I we have both found that the relevance and meaning of our findings is shaped by who we engage in our research. Because key informants - whether in an anthropologist’s ethnography or a health researcher’s community-based participatory research (CBPR) - can be so influential in shaping a study’s direction, we felt it would be important to cast a critical eye on how this influence can happen and how it may be affected by the role or position of said key informant in the population under study.

Using theoretical and empirically-driven arguments from a number of social science disciplines, we make a case that key informants remain important to community-engaged research, but that new researchers and those new to this style of research, need to ask themselves who their key informants are (are they professionals in the community, are they residents?) and how these roles may affect the knowledge they provide (e.g., their perspectives on community priorities and community member behaviors), the doors they open (with whom do they interact in the community, to whom can they help researchers gain access), and their position(s) of power relative to community members (are they in a position of power to push an agenda on the community?). These are issues that emerge in community-engaged research, regardless of specific methodological tools, region of study, or general area of interest/focus. The increased collaboration of researchers with those they research blurs lines that other approaches insist should be rigid and clear. However, the great strength of community-engaged research is its relevance to and potential empowerment of participating cultures, neighborhoods, and groups. Yet, we cannot optimize these benefits if we don’t have a full understanding of the nature of the data provided, the questions asked, and the people participating. 

Stacey A. McKenna and Debbi Main

Free access to Stacey and Debbi's new article in Action Research Journal is available free for 30 days here. We'd love to engage in conversation with you about your response to this article.

ARJ Vision Mission: From the desk of the Editor

The associate editors of Action Research have been getting more strategic of late.  The first step in embracing strategy work is to declare a vision. And so we declared that, in a nutshell, we care deeply about “re-enchanting Knowledge Creation For a Flourishing World.”

Our purpose with Action Research is to offer a forum for participative, action oriented inquiry into questions that matter--questions relevant to people in the conduct of their lives, that enable them to flourish in their organizations and communities, and that evince a deep concern for the wider ecology. We disseminate actionable knowledge to help people, organizations, communities and societies flourish. We foster the widespread impact of the action orientation to knowledge creation.

Our immodest aim is to help recover and transform the very idea of social science.  We want to continue the dialogue that will contribute to a viable alternative to the conventional models of social science. As debates about the limits of a 'disinterested' social science continue and while we wait for and work toward a world that is more just and sustainable, constructive alternatives to science as we know it are needed to fill the void. Our intent is to assist the Academy as well as the public and private sector to discover additions and alternatives to heretofore "ivory tower" positivist model of science, research and practice.
Our goal is to establish an international community for the scholar practitioners who work both in academia and various communities of practice. We wish to present innovative work from the field of action research to help refresh those who have been working in this domain, while simultaneously establishing a respected outlet for ground-breaking new work and writers. We are committed to representing the perspectives of diverse schools and practitioners in our selection of special issue topics, while simultaneously providing a model of social science for the 21st Century.

We believe it important to integrate research/practice that includes first-person, second-person and third-person research/practice. First-person research/practice refers to how we as researchers foster the ability to act with awareness, so as to assess effects in the outside world while acting. Second-person action research/practice addresses our ability to inquire face-to-face with others productively. Third-person research/practice aims to create a wider community of inquiry.

We invite promising papers! Please see our submission guidelines and more the our resouces for authors, especially submission guidelines here.

Hilary Bradbury-Huang, Portlandia 2013.

Changing the world one topic at a time: Melodie Bat

Melodie Bat is a Senior Research Fellow, Remote Education Systems Project for the Cooperative Research Centre for Remote Economic Participation and Charles Darwin University and Lyn Fasoli is  at the Batchelor Institute of Indigenous Tertiary Education, Australia. 

It’s a lonely thing, writing curriculum. You sit at your computer and you put your mind into gear and then through some special kind of magic, all of those years of teaching and learning across cultures bubbles out through your fingers and you write. You come up with fantastic activities that link people with content, that increase their skills, that feed their minds and give new hope, new power.

I wish!

It’s more like – you sit at your computer and panic a little bit inside because there’s no magic formula for this and you’ve just been asked to help change the world a little bit. Great opportunity. Wonderful intention. Good money to top up that PhD scholarship.

And then…you pause. You think about everything you know about education and about action research. You think, “Why not? This could be good.”

So you develop what you think is this amazing approach to writing curriculum that situates the learner at the center, that embeds everything you know about good Indigenous adult education in Australia, and you write. You write and you write and you re-write and just maybe you change the world a little bit.

At least that’s what I hope I did – you might need to read our paper to see what you think….

Kind regards,

Mel

We'd love to hear your ideas after you read our article!

From the desk of the editor: Hilary Bradbury-Huang

Considering the past ten and inventing the next ten years for Action Research journal.

The associate editors’ board for ARj met at Cornell University earlier this month to consider what we have accomplished in the past decade with the journal and what we hope to accomplish in the next.  We find ourselves surprised to be already 10 years old as a journal. We plan to formally celebrate in August 2013. In the meantime we’ll use social media to gather suggestions from our readers and Twitter followers on how best to celebrate. The theme for our celebration is “10 for 10.” But ten what you may well ask? And that is where your suggestions come in. Do we want to hear what are the ten favorite articles? Do we want to hear what are the top 10 requests for how ARj might better serve our readership and community?  We are all ears!

So what did we accomplish in Cornell? We got to know one another better. We each shared what were important milestones for us in becoming action researchers.  We also shared what we saw as strengths and obstacles. We crafted a vision and mission statement: Arj exists to “re-enchant knowledge creation for a sustainable world.” Most important, we decided that the development of an online community, tightly linked with the journal and using social media, is key to disseminating the action research perspective to a wider audience. It is also key to developing the next generation of action researchers. And we were happy to have a little fun together, to eat and drink well enough in each others company that we agreed to meet again in a couple of years. By 2014 we will know what we have accomplished in terms of growing our rigor and our vigor as an international community.

I invite you to look at this short video of Mary Brydon Miller’s reflection on the themes of a half days conversation. It shares a taste of our meeting and I hope sparks some thoughts for you on how to engage with us.

Happy Solstice, Happy Holidays

Hilary

A book for all stages: a review of Building in Research and Evaluation: Human Inquiry for Living Systems

In this post, Dian Chase, a PhD Candidate at Oregon Health and Science University, reviews Dr. Yoland Wadsworth's book, Building in Research and Evaluation: Human Inquiry for Living Systems.

 Yoland Wadsworth (2010).  Building in research and evaluation: human inquiry for living systems.  Action Research Press, Hawthorn and Allen & Unwin, Sydney.

What questions do you have about participatory research?  As a student, researcher and teacher, I have many.  From the why to the wherefore, from abstract to the concrete, Dr. Wadsworth’s book provides insights and answers.  This is a book with many purposes.  Bringing together concepts from systems theory, traditional inquiry, organizational behavior, and quality improvement, this book provides an intellectual basis for action resource.  Using metaphor (the inquiry cycle as a house was especially apt), checklists, and concrete examples, the concepts are accessible and useful for students, researchers and instructors.  And by her evident passion for working with, rather than on, people, Dr. Wadsworth reminds us of our motivation to pursue this work.

Like a map, this book provides a road map for meaningful inquiry; like a mirror, it reminds us of the need to build time for reflection into our planning rather than proceeding blindly down a pathway.  From that reflection, we draw insights that guide our actions.  By asking questions, we can broaden our insights and include others in our journey.  By focusing on fixing problems, we often create other problems.  By understanding the processes, we can create change that is meaningful and lasting.  This book is a guide to doing just that.

This book will be useful to me in many ways.  As a student, it helps tie together concepts and provide a framework for understanding.  As a researcher, the reminders, checklists and conceptual cycles (would that things would ever go linearly) provide touchstones for where my focus should be.  And as a teacher, the examples will help me make participatory research come alive.  It will have a place on my desk, rather than my bookshelf – a work for all stages of growth rather than a one time read.

Dian Chase

You can get more information about Dr. Wadsworth's book at the book's website. This book can be found in Europe,  UK, USA, and the Middle East at the publisher's site right here and in Australia, NZ, and Asia from the publisher at this link.  We'd be interested to hear your thoughts and comments as well!

Can Migraine Management be Action Research?

Some people might think Larry Smarr is crazy. After collecting enormous amounts of data, Larry arrived at his physician’s office with graphs and tables. Larry Smarr is not crazy. In fact, astrophysicist Larry Smarr had discovered his Crohn’s disease before medical science did and before he had noticeable symptoms. He contends that individuals can take responsibility for and manage their own health and that modern computing technology can help. In an article in The Atlantic, Mark Bowden recounts this tale of a man who realized that an individual is an expert about his/her own body. Smarr’s story illustrates that with data from monitoring one’s health, a person can be warned, and therefore, armed against serious health threats.

In my ARJ article on migraine management as action research, I give implicit assent to Smarr’s primary assertion and to an ancient Greek directive to know oneself. In the first-person, managing a chronic health condition is action research. The person who suffers is an expert about the health condition and the suffering that goes along with it. This person may choose to welcome second-person collaborations with family, friends, and healthcare professionals. Beyond the realm of one’s social interactions, third-person resources can also be helpful. Ultimately, managing one’s life can be perceived as ongoing cycles of Participatory Action Research, whereby a person engages others in order to stay well and be his or her optimal self.

In Participatory Action Research, it is vital to engage in analyses that expose one’s action logics to scrutiny. It can lead a person to eschew inauthentic acts and thoughts in favor of authentic ones.

As a psychologist, researcher, and a person with a disability from a chronic health condition, I’m interested in others’ views on this topic. Are the types of self-scrutiny that I describe and that Smarr evidences indicative of well-being? Or, is it plain old narcissism? 

I look forward to your thoughts and comments.

Lauren S. Seifert

Access this article online 

Back into the Field

In 2005 Shankar Sankaren wrote his “Notes from the Field,” for the Action Research Journal about the sabbatical he took and the many Action Researchers he met during his travels in the US.  One of the over arching themes of Shankar’s reflection was how to increase conversation among Action Researchers spread across the globe.  Could websites be the needed portal for connectivity?  What about conferences and professional networking opportunities?  Or, how about good old fashion books and journals as ways of sharing information and keeping in touch?

These aforementioned methods are great, and combined with technological applications such as skype, blogging, facebook, twitter, and other social media, it appears that keeping in touch and sharing information is easier now than it ever has been.  The combination of communication technology and modern travel make it easy for people to connect in either the virtual or real worlds.

It with these thoughts in mind that I realize how fortunate the Action Research Center, the University of Cincinnati, and the City of Cincinnati are to be hosting Professor Sankaren.  Over the past few weeks I have had pleasure of working in the same space as Shankar, attending meetings together, discussing dissertation ideas, and even arranging a visit for us to volunteer our time at Gorman Heritage Farm —really working in the field.  As an environmentalist, I am often overly critical of long distance travel because of the fuel burned.  However, there is no substitution for “being there,” wherever that is.  Travel and face-to-face meetings, working side-by-side, cultural immersion, and sitting around the same table with others are invaluable experiences. 

John Hemmerle, Shankar Sankaren, Alan Wight
Gorman Heritage Farm - October 18th, 2011

As Peter Reason stated in 2005, “Thank you Shankar for taking the time!”

Alan Wight

Action Research Center

University of Cincinnati

Notes:

Shankar Sankaren. 2005.  Action Research Journal. Notes from the Field: Action Research Conversations.  3 (4), 341 – 350

Peter Reason. 2005.  Action Research Journal.  Editorial.  3 (4), p 339- 340.